NEW ORLEANS -- With profits low throughout the wireless industry, carriers face some major financial challenges, Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett warned during the initial policy panel at the CTIA’s annual conference late Monday. Panelists agreed that wireline will play a big role in ensuring wireless growth will continue during an expected spectrum crunch.

Forthcoming standards from two industry groups will more closely integrate the Internet, mobile devices and other consumer electronics with broadcast TV, executives from the Advanced Television Systems Committee and Motion Picture Experts Group predicted at the ATSC’s annual meeting. Work at the ATSC is under way on its 2.0 standard, which is backward-compatible with the existing TV standard, ATSC President Mark Richer said Tuesday. ATSC 2.0 has better video compression, and new features allow for audience measurement, digital rights management and “advanced” electronic program guides, he said. MPEG Chairman Leonardo Chiariglione summarized his group’s ongoing work (CD April 30 p12) on a variety of standards for any industry to use, including broadcasters.

Dish Network met its initial sales targets on the Hopper receiver/DVR, prompting manufacturer EchoStar to court other potential customers, EchoStar Chief Financial Officer Kenneth Carroll said on an earnings call Monday.

The Senate approved the nominations of Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel by unanimous consent Monday to become FCC commissioners. Pai, a Republican from Kansas, was an aide to former Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., has worked as a lawyer at the FCC and replaces former commissioner Meredith Baker, for a term ending July 1, 2016. Rosenworcel, a Democrat from Connecticut, was an aide to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and replaces former commissioner Michael Copps, in a term that ends July 1, 2015.

An FCC rulemaking on Dish Network’s effort to build a wireless network and the proceeding on Verizon Wireless’s purchase of AWS spectrum from cable operators will impact Dish’s entrance into the wireless business, Chairman Charlie Ergen said Monday during an earnings call. With comments in the proceeding on flexible use of the 2 GHz satellite band due May 17, Ergen said filings may be similar to those submitted during the proceeding related to Dish’s purchase of DBSD and Terrestar last year (CD Nov 8 p4). Some comments may touch on interference, he predicted. The GPS industry said previously “that we don’t interfere,” Ergen said. “I don’t think there’s surprises there and we've done a lot of homework in the interference issues."

States like Virginia said they are going beyond traditional methods to ensure cybersecurity, as a federal report found that despite progress at the federal level, “cyber capabilities are lagging at the state level.” The latest National Preparedness Report by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (http://xrl.us/bm6jmy) found that cybersecurity was the “single core capability where states had made the least amount of overall progress,” with an “average capability level of 42 percent.”

CAMBRIDGE, Md. -- NTIA never probed the administration or industry on the $18 billion cost estimate for clearing the 1755-1850 MHz band contained in a recent agency report on the future of the band, Deputy Administrator Anna Gomez said Saturday. One recurring industry criticism is that the numbers contained in the report were unrealistically high. Gomez reiterated, in a presentation at the FCBA’s annual meeting, that a key finding of the report that spectrum sharing will be a key part of meeting growing industry needs for more access to spectrum.

CAMBRIDGE, Md. -- The FCC “transformed” the USF in a series of recent orders rather than just reforming it, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn told the FCBA’s annual retreat on Saturday. “It’s a perpetual transformation of a regime we all knew needed to be modernized,” she said. “I think we all knew it was going to be difficult and will continue to be difficult. … It’s a balancing act, but it’s one worth embarking on."

CAMBRIDGE, Md. -- FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick and Chief of Staff Zac Katz denied that uncertainty created by the Comcast v. FCC decision, and pending appellate reviews of the FCC’s net neutrality and data roaming orders, have slowed agency work in other areas. Their comments came, during a discussion at the FCBA annual meeting late Friday. Schlick noted pointedly that one company, Verizon, could remove future uncertainty since it is a lead appellant challenging both orders.

The data-gathering phase for the FCC’s 2012 Measuring Broadband America report was delayed by about a month to this April, because of server issues, said an ex parte filing posted in docket 09-158 last week (http://xrl.us/bm55z3). An FCC engineer working on the ISP speed tests told us the issues were relatively minor. And the technical issues occurred over a period of several months, the recent filing said.